Monday, October 20, 2008

Local man charged with animal cruelty

A local man caught a squirrel, bashed it against a tree to kill it and then cooked it with a blow torch to eat it. He never got to enjoy his meal though because a neighbor called the police and he was arrested for animal cruelty. I'm mostly annoyed, and slightly furious that he was arrested for this. Has our society become so removed from the process of food production that we don't see that this is no different than how we get our double cheeseburgers? I am inclined to find out when his court date is and show up in support of him.

The local response on the online newspaper is mostly hateful. Prejudiced people are using this as an opportunity to bash immigrants. However, the two (non-local) blogs that picked up on this story had a more favorable response to the man. Here are some of my favorite quotes.

"His real crime was in not spreading the wealth around. That squirrel could have fed 2, maybe 3 people, easy."

"The slippery slope towards Switzerland where it is now illegal to besmirch the dignity of a plant."

"Next thing you know, people will be prosecuted for using rat traps, even if they don’t eat what they catch.

"Squirrels are actually legal game in Massachusetts to licensed hunters. Squirrel season opens Saturday."

"I'm still trying to deal with the idea of a "squirrel season".

"Chasing small animals is supposed to be good training for football fumble recovery."

1 Comments:

*ROFL* - In the part of Maryland where I used to live a local-dish was "Squirrel Pie", kinda like a chicken-pot-pie but with squirrel. I personally never got into the idea of it but the RNs were always bringing it to the lunchroom. *giggle*